


The Look

by olivemartini



Category: Parks and Recreation
Genre: F/M, Insecure Ben, Pre-Relationship, Season 3, bamf Leslie
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-05
Updated: 2018-12-05
Packaged: 2019-09-07 15:44:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,513
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16856809
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/olivemartini/pseuds/olivemartini
Summary: She doesn't look at Chris.He keeps waiting for it.Ben had expected it, in the beginning, that first day where she had marched into the office and asked to speak with him and got hit with the hundred watt Chris smile for the first time.  It was a phenomenon that he had seen over and over- how the women in the office (and some of the guys, he's not blind, even if Chris seems to be) stop short and lose their train of thought for a moment, scan their eyes over him like they can't believe that the person in front of them is that real, that someone could be so nice and look so good and have it all be real, and it's annoying, but Ben gets it.  When you hear the words state auditor, you don't think of someone like Chris.But Ben?  He fits.





	The Look

She doesn't look at Chris.

He keeps waiting for it.  

Ben had expected it, in the beginning, that first day where she had marched into the office and asked to speak with him and got hit with the hundred watt Chris smile for the first time.  It was a phenomenon that he had seen over and over- how the women in the office ( _and some of the guys, he's not blind, even if Chris seems to be_ ) stop short and lose their train of thought for a moment, scan their eyes over him like they can't believe that the person in front of them is that real, that someone could be so nice and look so good and have it all be real, and it's annoying, but Ben  _gets it._ When you hear the words state auditor, you don't think of someone like Chris.

But Ben?  He fits.

"I-,"  She stopped, but she didn't have the look.  No deer in the headlights sort of panic that the more shy office girls get, when they clutch folders to their chest and give some sort of helpless giggle, seemingly unable to make eye contact.  None of the look that the more forward women get, the ones that seem to find more and more reasons to spend time in Chris' office, always calling it Chris' office, even though Ben was there, too.  "No.  I wanted to talk to Ben, actually."

"Great," Chris says, still smiling, still oblivious, probably not noticing the look like Ben was noticing the complete absence of the look, and he knows he is making something out of nothing, but really, he has been on the road a long time and there are very few people that manage to not be star struck the first time that they meet Chris, and Leslie doesn't look at him like that, just looks a little puzzled when he announces he's off for his daily run and jogs right out of the room.  

(It impresses him.  It makes him happy, that there's going to be one person in the office that he isn't going to have to watch fawn over him, and he really wants to be friends with her, which is why he invites her out for a beer, and thinks very quickly that he might have to make up a lie as to why he wanted to hang out with the woman who was yelling at him.)

(The lie dies in his throat, later, because the reason turns into something very different when he looks over at Leslie and sees her giving him  _the look,_ the one that everyone gives Chris, and Ben is just so not used to being that person, so he chokes on his beer.  And because he is not Chris, and wants to be fair, and knows he is going to spend the next few weeks being Mean Ben and will probably cost a lot of her friends their jobs so she's going to hate him, hate him and he'll never get to see her make  _the look_ again, and hell, he'll probably have to watch her give Chris  _the look_ , so he just tells her about Ice Town just so she understands, just to speed the whole process up.)

 

 

 

The look doesn't go away.

Not after budget cuts.  Not after she hears about Ice Town.  And not after a particularly bad meeting with the department heads, where he had to fire nonessential people from every department but the parks department, which should be a consolation but really isn't, because they had placed their jobs in a gamble over something called the Harvest Fest, so he's going to have to fire them all anyway.

(He doesn't, but he didn't know that at the time, because he thought that they were going to fail.  At the time, he didn't know Leslie Knope.)

"Chris," He says, when there's a knock on the door, and Ben doesn't even lift his head off the pile of paperwork, that's how tired he is.  He had just spent the whole meeting having Chris tell everyone that they are valued and needed and loved, and how he wanted to keep all of them, and then led in with the  _but Ben has found_ bit that they had used in each town they show up at, leaving Ben to be the person that lists off the names of people that don't have a job anymore.  "This really isn't a good time."

"Sorry,"  She says, and he jerks himself upright so fast that he puts a crick in his neck.  Leslie smiles apologetically, and he thinks this is the first time she has looked sorry about anything, even during that time where she was trying to apologize for her behavior at the Snakehole.  "I just thought you might want to split a sandwich?"

He'd only known her for a week, but Ben thinks this is the first time he has seen her phrase anything with a question. 

"I-,"  He had ink on his hands.  His tie was off, and the top three buttons on his shirt were undone.  He should have shut off the lights and pretended no one was home.  "I already ate."

"No, you didn't.  They put cat food in your lunch."  She was still giving him  _the look,_ and that was getting more and more terrible as time went on, because surely he is reading this wrong, surely she doesn't mean it the way he thinks that she is meaning it, someone as good as Leslie Knope cannot give Ben  _the look_ , not when he spent the past few weeks trying to figure out which of her friends to fire.  "And I always pack too much.  Is peanut butter okay?"  She stops short, his half of the sandwich wavering in the air between them.  "Unless you're allergic?  Are you allergic?  I can-,"

"I'm not allergic,"  He says, face flaming, and takes the sandwich because he doesn't think he has any dignity left, anyways.  It's one thing to be the guy that everyone hates, and stand in front of the girl that you totally like and who you hope likes you and tell all of her friends that they're going to be fired.  It's quite another to be the guy who takes a bite of his lunch and only  _then_ notices that someone had smashed cat food over his chicken sandwich, and then spend the afternoon retching in a bathroom stall, only to come out of the bathroom to a hall full of people who had their noses in their folders but still couldn't hide the way they were laughing.  

"Chris is a jerk,"  She says, when he had taken three bites of his sandwich and managed to keep it down, and also discovered that when Leslie says peanut butter sandwich, she means twenty percent peanut butter and the rest being strawberry jelly.  He feels awkward because she isn't eating, and Leslie must have noticed, because she takes an extra large handful of pretzels to make him feel better and almost chokes.  "He shouldn't- he's your boss, isn't he- he should take some responsibility for the decisions the two of you are making, and I..."  She trails off, looks at him again, and Ben wonders how it is possible that he could feel like a high schooler again, like a kid who is way too into Star Wars and who is always trying too hard to fit in but never quite manages to get there.  "I can make them stop."

The offer is nice, and the sincerity of her makes him have to bow his head and scrub at his eyes.  He's exhausted, more exhausted than he can ever remember being in all his days on the road, and does not know how to explain to her that this job is not about making friends.  Does not know how to tell her that before they pitched the plan to work together, Ben used to come across Chris just staring at a brick wall because he couldn't stand the knowledge of the lives he was ruining, and that Ben would come in every morning with death threats because he never did manage to learn how to soften the blow.  Doesn't know how to say that this was something that he agreed upon and that he shouldn't get to have something different just because there's people here who make him want to be Ben Wyatt.

Not Mean Ben. 

Not the Ben from home, the one who made Ice Town and wrecked everything.

Just Ben.

He doesn't know if that's possible.

"It's alright, Leslie."  He has to swallow twice to make his voice come out.  He doesn't remember anyone else that he ever made it to first name basis with.  Doesn't know anyone else who would split a sandwich with the state auditor.  "They lost their jobs.  I can handle a little cat food."   _I've had worse,_ is what he doesn't say, and tries for a smile instead, adding an awkward "I should get back to work," at the end, and even though he has no right to be dismissing her, she still just smiles, leaves the rest of her food, and closes the door behind her, flicking off the lights as she goes.

 

 

The Snakehole is busy.  Tom is yelling in his ear, and the lights and sounds are making Ben uncomfortable, and Donna has bought him three beers without listening to anything Ben said about being able to pay for his own drinks, and Leslie is being way too nice to him.

"I'm glad you came,"  She is saying, smiling at him, and they both look a little weird under the lights.  Her hair has a blue tint to it and the strobe lights make her eyes flash and she has to stand close to him in order to be heard over the music, and Ben wants to beg her to go outside and get some air just to put some space between them, just so he can do this without April scowling over at them like she knows the things he is thinking, wants to not be thinking about how Leslie's hip keeps bumping his and that she touches the inside of his wrist to get his attention, wants to not be wondering if maybe she was doing this on purpose.  "Chris said you probably wouldn't."

"Yeah, well,"  is what Ben comes up with, because he's eloquent like that, and then takes another long drink of his beer because it was the only thing he could think of that could keep him from looking at her.  He thinks he could use the loudness as an excuse for not having a conversation, but then Tom is ordering something slower and softer to be played at Andy's request so he can slow dance with April in the middle of all these tables, and he doesn't have any trouble at all hearing her.  She still doesn't move away.

"I think I owe you an apology.  For the last time we were here."  She smiles a little sheepishly.  Sheepish isn't a good look on Leslie.  She normally has an aura around her that reminds him of dynamite.  "Officially."

"Yeah."  He snorts at his drink.  "Cause that went so well the last time."

"I know, that's why I- Ben."  Her voice gets a little hard, a lot serious, and her hand is on his wrist again, and even that little motion has him turning to her, eyes wide and wishing that he had a bit more self restraint.  "I shouldn't have said what I did."

"I don't-,"  He winces, wishes he was a better liar.  Chris was the one who could lie, who could spin out wishes the way that Ben rattled off budget statistics, gathered up empty promises and false platitudes in his hands and blowing them out into the world like that might make them true.  "I don't remember."

He remembers.  He remembers how everyone at Indianapolis had told him that there was a woman there, Leslie, and she was bit much sometimes, but she was nice, and she was fair, and she cares, cares more than anyone they had ever met.  That if he needed something and the upper levels wouldn't tell him how to get it, she was the person to go to.  That she was a good person to go to if you're a stranger in need of a friend, and Ben had seen her there and thought  _what the hell,_ went over to introduce himself because he was tired of drinking alone, and she had told him to leave.

 _Get out,_ she had said, very forcefully, if he remembers correctly, and he remembered scrambling to find a way to save face.   _No one wants you here._

And the worst part?  She wasn't even wrong.

"I told you that you should leave, and that we didn't want you here,"  She says, and he winces, hoping she doesn't notice but knowing she did.  There's a lot of things he hopes she doesn't notice, mainly how much her words still bothered him and also how his pulse was jumping under her fingertips.  "But I was wrong."

"Leslie-,"

"No," She says, and she does not look sheepish or sorry anymore, she looks like Leslie.  "No, I was wrong, and it was rude of me even if it had been the truth, and you were only coming here to do your job and we all made it so, so difficult, and no matter how much I hate to admit it, the cuts you're making are the only thing that's keeping us afloat.  Which,"  and he has his eyes closed now but he thinks that she is smiling, "does not mean I will not be fighting you over every single one of them, but-,"

"I'm the state auditor."  He says, and thinks how stupid he was when he first thought taking this job would be a good idea, how he thought he would be fine with the idea of never having a home.  Of being so scared of himself that he thought the best course of action was to never stop running.  "No one wants me here."

"But we want you here  _now_."  She says, and pulls on his shirt sleeve just a little, and that makes him hate himself, because who wears a plaid button up to a club, but also- he lives out of a suit case. What did Tom expect him to wear? "We're your friends.  You know that, right?"

He hadn't, but he supposes its true, and he shakes his head because that just reminds him that he's going to have to leave soon, and that makes something in his chest feel like it's being squeezed by an invisible fist.  "Leslie..."  He starts, not sure where the sentence is going.

Maybe  _Leslie, I took you out for a beer and then tried to get you fired because you were the more disposable with the highest pay check, did you know that?  Did Ron tell you?  Probably not, because the only reason you still have a job is because Ron said that we were going to fire you it would be over his dead body, and if we did fire you, he would resign, which meant they would just have to hire you again to fill his position and then have to deal with an angry tiger woman every day._

Maybe  _you are someone that builds things and all I do is travel around tearing things apart, you have roots grown so deep I seem to trip over them every time I come near you and I've been living out of a suit case for ten years, do you see why this doesn't add up_ or something like  _I know that when the sewage department guys locked me in the portapotti at the park you were the one who let me out, and I know you lunged around the back so I didn't have to deal with looking you in the face afterwards, and you are so nice that you make it seem effortless_ and most likely he would just lose his mind and go with  _hey, I really like you, can we just make out in the corner instead of rehashing all the mean things you said to me, because no matter how cute you are when you get angry, I'd rather have it not be directed at me._

He doesn't say any of that.  He just stops, swallows hard, and looks at her, looks at her with that deer in the headlights look that he had seen so many people give to Chris, but he thinks he gets it now, that sometimes you see someone so incredible that it really just makes you numb for a moment.

"No."  She smiles, and lets go of his arm.  He misses the contact.  "We're your friends.  I'm you friend, Ben."  She gives him a smile, her own hundred watt smile, but this one is special because this one was only for him.  "I want you here."

 

 

 

In general, he likes Chris.  Just not today.

Ben knew he shouldn't have said anything. Had a feeling that if he mentioned it, it would be jinxed for all eternity, so he wasn't going to say a word, but then Chris was asking him if he had plans and if he not, would he want to come spot him while he lifted weights and there is literally nothing  _in the universe_ that Ben hates more than seeing all of Chris up close and knowing exactly how much more he could lift than Ben could, so he just gives a little laugh, proud of himself, because Chris always trying to set him up, and here Ben was, doing it on his own for tonight.  "I have a date."  Which is a lie, and also saying it out loud turns it from a thought to a reality, and that makes him nervous, so he adds, "Well, I'm planning to have a date.  I haven't asked her yet.  She might be busy, so we'd have to go.. not tonight, or she might say no, which,"

He's too busy rambling that he doesn't even notice that Chris isn't congratulating him.  Or that he doesn't have his hundred watt smile.

"Oh."  It's a fifty percent smile.  Like a normal watt smile.  Ben still doesn't see the bad thing coming. "Does she work here?"

"Yeah."  It's nice to talk about.  Normally, he hates Chris' positivity, but he would like a self esteem booster, which Chris is very good for.  "Yeah, I thought I'd ask her over lunch."

"But you can't,"  Chris says, and sounds a little desperate, and a lot sorry.  "You know why you can't, right?"

Ben thought he knew, suddenly, sickeningly, but for once, he hates Chris.  Hates him so much he doesn't want to be the guy who always says no, wants to make Chris be the one to say the bad thing.  Doesn't say anything at all throughout the fumbling explanation of tax payer money and conflict of interest and subordinates and image.  Doesn't say anything until the one jerky nod at the end that he gives to show that he understood.

"I really am sorry.  Really."  Chris has his hand on Ben's shoulder, and Ben hates himself a little bit, but he still leans into it.  He's a tactile person and Chris knows it.  "I knew how much you liked her."

Ben doesn't bother finding out if Chris was actually talking about Leslie.

 

 

Leslie asks him out a day later.

It's a cruel kind of irony, and Ben sort of wants to go to church just in case there's a god that he can yell at, because he wants to tell whoever's in charge that he thinks all his years of state auditing would have washed away the sins of Ice Town, and they could stop using him as a punching bag now.  And Ben has to stand there and say no ( _like a dick, he sounded like a dick, why does he always sound like that_ ), and for a while, the look goes away.

But it comes back.

That's even worse.

 

 

 

 

When he kisses her, Ben is like ninety-five percent sure that she was going to be okay with it.  They'd been dancing around this for a long time, and they'd spent weeks making cryptic remarks about how stupid the rule was and how they liked each other that were so heavily veiled that he could almost pretend that they weren't talking about each other, and when he had told her that he liked her at dinner and she went to call Ann, Leslie had came back to the table with that dynamite look, and he's pretty sure she was going to kiss him right there, if only Chris hadn't shown up.

But Chris had shown up, and she didn't kiss him, and they pretended to be nothing but a casual business related friendship, but then he marches into her office and kisses her, and he was pretty sure that nothing had changed since that night at dinner, but still, time had passed.  And when you kiss a girl, generally, you don't want the first words out of her mouth to be "uh-oh."

"Sorry.  I just,"  He snatched his hands back from her waist like they burned him, suddenly terrified that he had read everything wrong, that she did not want him.  "I wanted to."

It was a flimsy reason.  He was pretty sure that he was about to get thrown out of her office.

"Yeah."  She peered around him, kicked the door closed, and there it was, the hundred watt Leslie smile.  "Let's do it again."

 

 

 

The look doesn't stop.

Ben doesn't expect it to.  They've been doing this long enough for him to be secure in the idea that Leslie is just an enamored with him as Ben is with her, but that doesn't mean that he doesn't have his doubts, sometimes, like that initial moment where she makes a proud little humming sound when she finally gets all the buttons on his shirt undone, or that first time he had rambled on about Game of Thrones and then snapped his mouth shut when he realized how stupid that sounded but she had just waved a spatula at him until he kept talking, or right this moment, actually, when she pulls up on the street to bring him and Chris water as they work to set up the new playground.

( _That was part of the budget cuts.  He had said that they couldn't afford the construction crew, and then Leslie had just arched her eyebrow at him across the table in a way that she knew made him want to kiss her (he had told her that) and said that she would volunteer her time, and well, Ben couldn't just_ not  _offer to help when his girlfriend was going to do construction work all by herself._ _)_

So they're building a swing set.  And it was going okay, because Chris is actually pretty bad at building and Ben gets to be the bossy one, which he really likes to do when it comes to Chris, and he thinks that they're going to get it done by the end of the day before Ron and Tom show up, which was the goal.  But it was hot, which meant that their shirts are on the ground beside their empty water bottles, and while Ben doesn't really like being shirtless beside Chris in any situation, he really didn't want to be shirtless beside him when Leslie was there.

(Not -and he wants to be clear here- that he thinks that Leslie is into Chris, or that he doesn't trust her wholeheartedly.  But whenever his girlfriends meet Chris, there's always a moment where they seem to forget where they are and just want to stare, just for a moment, before they snap their attention back to Ben, extra nice and extra clingy to make up for that moment where they strayed.  And Ben is pretty sure he's being honest when he thinks that he never blames them, because there is always that half moment where you don't  _intend_ to look when you see something pretty, and the fact that they come back to him is enough.  He understands that sometimes you can't help but have  _a look_ when you look at Chris.  Ben does it more than he would ever admit.)

(But he doesn't want to see Leslie do it.  Doesn't want to have her attention on anyone but him.  Doesn't want to see himself take second place to Chris  _again,_ and doesn't want it to be over the fact that Chris looks better than Ben does without a shirt, and doesn't want the whole thing to be in front of Anne, too.)

"Leslie Knope.  And the beautiful Ann Perkins. You brought me water?"  Chris' smile, which is brighter than it should be all the time, has turned into a thousand watt when he's around Ann.  Then he turns to Ben and it dims a little.  "I asked them to bring water.  Hydration,"  And here he snaps in Ben's direction, and also picks up a bottle and squirts it in Ben's face, which, great, now he has stupid hair, too.  "is very important."

Ben doesn't say anything.  Doesn't look at either of them.  Doesn't want to see Leslie get  _the look_ for the first time ever.

"Maybe," She starts, and her voice sounds a little strangled, and it's odd enough that Ben looks at her.  "Maybe put on some shirts?  For government reasons?"

Ben just shrugs, because, no, he isn't going to put on a shirt.  And neither is Chris, apparently, because Ann is taking him by the hand and dragging him towards the house and Ben estimates that he'll be building the rest of the swing set by himself, and he also thinks that Ann is smart enough to keep Chris away from the windows so he and Leslie have a bit of privacy.

"You know,"  She says, when they are alone and Ben has started to work on the swing set again and she has taken up Chris' role of handing him things, only she does it a lot better than him.  "If we're in a secret relationship, you shouldn't walk around like that around me.  People might catch on."

"What?"  He says, nails caught in his teeth and still fuming over the fact that Chris smiles like he just saw a puppy and runs ten miles a day, so he almost doesn't get it, when he turns around and she's half blushing, half laughing, but definitely flirting with him, even though he's used to her being a bit more blatant about it since they started dating.  

Leslie laughs at him. She's got  _the look,_ and for the first time, Ben stops wondering how she looks at Chris.  It doesn't matter how anyone looks at Chris, so long as Leslie keeps looking at him like that.

**Author's Note:**

> come find me on Instagram @olive.writes.fanfic


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